HBO's 'Silicon Valley' took a page from Mark Cuban's story about being naked and becoming a billionaire

Fans have just assumed
that HBO's "Silicon Valley" based its raunchy venture capitalist
Russell Hanneman on Mark Cuban, but Sunday's episode pretty much
answers the question.

In a scene with the guys of Pied Piper, Russ (Chris
Diamantopoulos) says that he has been informed that his net
worth had fallen below a billion dollars. The news sent him into
a tailspin and he asked the guys to prematurely jump to a
revenue-producing model of Pied Piper.

During that conversation, he describes the moment he became a
billionaire.

"I remember the second I became a billionaire," Russ said. "I was
a-- naked, sitting right there, just clicking and refreshing,
clicking and refreshing, watching the stock rise. And when it
happened, I popped a [expletive] so fast I went blind for a full
minute, [expletive] all over those cushions."

Sound familiar?

Cuban told
a very similar story (minus the raunchy, expletive part)
in August 2014 during a podcast interview.

"Literally, I was sitting in front of a computer, naked, hitting
the refresh because we were close — waiting until my net worth
hit that billion when the stock price got to a certain point, and
then I kinda screamed and jumped around and then got dressed,"
the "Shark Tank" cohost said.

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas
Mavericks of the NBA.Doug
Pensinger/Getty

When asked about the scene, Cuban simply told Business Insider,
"Russ is hysterical. I cracked up when I saw it."

So Russell and Cuban are both colorful characters. They both
brought radio to the internet in billion-dollar deals. They both
have invested in several companies. And now, both of them watched
their money grow to the billion-dollar level. Those are some
pretty compelling similarities.